SK Telecom’s 5G download speed fastest among Korean telcos

[Photo by Yonhap]

South Korea’s top wireless carrier SK Telecom Co. was crowned as the fastest 5G download speed provider on its 5G network in Korea by British mobile analytics and insights provider Opensignal.

SK Telecom ranked top with an average download speed of 471.1 megabit per second (Mbps) on the 5G network, according to a study by Opensignal on Friday. LG Uplus Corp. came second with a speed of 396.5 Mbps and KT Corp. third with 395 Mbps.

The same results came out in the category of upload speed on 5G network. SKT boasted the fastest upload speed of 40.6 Mbps, followed by LG Uplus with 34.3 Mbps and KT with 32.3 Mbps.

As for the overall network download speed, SKT came in first with 129.9 Mbps, KT second with 101 Mbps, and LG Uplus third with 92.9 Mbps. In terms of the overall network upload speed, SKT and LG Uplus were tied with 17 Mbps and KT recorded 13.2 Mbps.

The 5G experience using mid-band spectrum bands has been good and thus, Korean operators have felt little need to deploy the ultra-high capacity 28 GHz mmWave bands, Opensignal said. As a result, the Ministry of Science and ICT has intervened and either cancelled their 28 GHz licenses or warned to increase the pace of deployment, it said.